Kylie Jenner Makes Her Case For Being on the Most Influential Teens List

"I just want to inspire my fans."

Earlier this week we reported on Time magazine's list of the 30 most influential teens for 2015. On that list was Malala Yousafzai, the humanitarian and staunch advocate for girls' education rights; Olivia Hallisey, a 17-year-old who invented a new way to test for Ebola; and Ahmed Mohamed, the Texas teen who was arrested in school after he brought a homemade clock to class and his teachers thought it was a bomb. Celebrities like Amandla Stenberg and Shawn Mendes also made the cut, but the one name on the list that shocked everyone — especially when next to some of the aforementioned individuals — was Kylie Jenner. As the list was based on various factors including social media popularity and each individual's ability to drive news, the youngest member of the Kardashian empire received a mention. The public, however, was not pleased.

Time's reason for including Kylie on the list was that she "is arguably the most-watched teenager in the world, commanding an audience of 60 million people across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram." The magazine also quoted Kylie as saying, “Everything I do, I always start these huge trends,” and referenced her infamous #KylieJennerLipChallenge as an example of her ability to influence the masses.

Kylie has now responded to the backlash of her mention and why she thinks she deserved to be on that list. In another interview with Time, she said, "Whether we’re influential for one reason or another, it is what it is. I know how influential I am over my fans and followers. People might have been upset because we were next to, like, young girls who started schools and crazy things. But we’re just different people! We’re influential in different ways, and that’s OK."

The star even goes on to address how the lip challenge was around way before her, and how it somehow just became attached to her name. She said, "People just started calling it the Kylie Jenner lip thing. I went on social media and said I was not down for this, I don’t approve of this." The experience has even made her reconsider how she approaches social media, and has made her more passionate than ever about something she identifies very closely with: bullying. "I want to help other young girls and boys going through the same thing [bullying]. I’m going through the same thing you are, so we can go through it together," she said. As you know, Kylie has spoken frequently in the past about how growing up in the spotlight among her famous family has left her particularly exposed to harsh and cruel commenters online. It's also why she started her #IAmMoreThan campaign.

As to how she would actually like to influence teens she said, "I just want to inspire my fans to be whoever they want to be, because that’s what I’ve always done."

So there you have it. Kylie Jenner thinks she deserves to be on Time's most influential teen list, and she knows she's an inspiration to all of her fans. Love her or hate her, you can't deny that she's one popular young lady.